One in two Germans reads at least one Bauer Media Group magazine a week, it is estimated, and from its healthy home market the privately owned publisher is building a global magazine giant with 400 titles across 15 countries – including Australia.

So what should employees of ­Australia’s ACP Magazines and the readers of its mastheads expect from a business with roots in printing business cards in 19th-century Hamburg that has been handed down through five generations of a family that is now one of the wealthiest in Germany?

Bauer is expanding into Australia with the $500 million ACP deal. The publisher’s assets include The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and Australian House & Garden.

“They are surprising in quite a lot of ways," said Colin Morrison, a former chief executive of ACP and of British magazine business EMAP, which was also sold to Bauer.

“In some ways, perhaps they almost meet the stereotype of what British people would traditionally expect of a German company."

Mr Morrison said the Bauer way was a focus on processes in the quest for efficiencies as well as attention to detail. Executives spent as much time on the magazine with the smallest circulation as the largest.

“The harshest criticism that people make of them from inside their ­business is that they are much more interested in processes than creativity," he said. “On the other hand, if you are in a market that is systematically under attack and decline, you had ­better get your costs down and squeeze things to basics. Otherwise you’ll lose your shirt."

The Bauer family owns lots of publications but has little interest in being interviewed. A spokeswoman told The Australian Financial Review that Bauer was unable to comment until the sales process was finished. It is expected to take another four to six weeks.

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The only comment on the deal from Yvonne Bauer, the 35-year-old who heads the business, is that ACP fits into Bauer’s strategy of developing globally. “We believe in print and ACP’s strong brands in Australia and New Zealand are the perfect platforms to expand into digital areas," she said, announcing the takeover.

The high price is attracting plenty of interest in a sector facing well-known headwinds. The $500 million price tag that ACP’s embattled private equity owners, CVC Asia Pacific, will be paid equals more than six times the $80 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation ACP is forecast to make in the 2013 financial year. That’s not a bad multiple, given other magazine businesses have sold for as little as two times.EBITA.

For CVC the merits of the deal are not only a strong all-cash valuation to help pay off the $2.8 billion they borrowed to buy the late Kerry Packer’s media business, which includes Nine Network Australia and Ticketek. Spinning off the magazines business could make a sale of the television ­station easier, or at least give it more room for dealing with the hedge funds that bought up the debt and are looking to take control.

Harder to answer is why has Bauer, better known for building titles than buying them, paid such a high price for magazines that, despite having loyal readers, are facing a seemingly permanent slump in revenue as advertisers and readers drift online.

Mr Morrison pointed out that privately owned companies have been active in the media sector, picking up print businesses and radio stations.

“If you’re a long-planning family dynastic business, you could easily take the view that the last people standing in this churning world will do very well when the market narrows down," he says.

“When only the best and strongest operations are left, there will actually be quite a lot of money left over, and it won’t matter that the magazine ­market is half the size it is today."